Users of a mobile handset device (or “smartphone”), have the opportunity to view a variety of different documents, photos, videos, music, applications, and other types of multimedia on their smartphone. For the creators and publishers of the multimedia content (such as designers, authors, artists, and programmers), getting feedback on the content from users is very important, as it drives the content creators and publishers to improve their products and to direct their efforts to new opportunities.
However, getting feedback from users on the quality of multimedia content used on a mobile handset is difficult. Current state-of-the art approaches include, but are not limited to: having users review the content through a quantitative metric system, such as through a rating scale of one to five stars or through written text, either of which can be given at an online or physical store; and measuring the indirect lift of the media by measuring sales of associated products, or visits to the store or website of the creator or publisher. All of these conventional approaches are problematic because the user must actively provide an evaluation of the multimedia, where such an evaluation is susceptible to bias or memory recall.
Another approach is counting the number of times that the user consumes the multimedia (by reading, watching, or listening). However, this count can still be inaccurate and too coarse. For example, many multimedia files are consumed only once (such as media received via email), so a conclusion from access counts is inadequate.